Assignment of the newly professed to Scholasticates and the International Brothers Centres

The newly professed Comboni missionaries for 2011 are thirty-three: twenty-seven scholastics for the priesthood and six Comboni Brothers. Of these candidates for the Comboni missionary life-style, twenty-nine are from Africa (twenty-four scholastics and five Brothers), three from America (all scholastics) and one from Europe (a Brother). "Let us joyfully welcome these new confreres - wrote Fr. John Baptist – always accompanying them with our prayers in their formation journey.”

In the list of assignments there are six confreres in temporary vows that have completed their term of missionary experience or studies in their Provinces of origin.

The thirty-nine newly professed  have been assigned to the following Scholasticates and International Brothers  Centers, where they will continue their studies in  Theology or Social Ministry and Pastoral Studies: Nairobi-Kenya (3 to the Scholasticate and 4 to the IBC), Bogota- Colombia (2 to the IBC) to the scholasticates of Kinshasa-Congo (4), Pietermaritzburg-South Africa (3), Asmara-Eritrea (2), Cape Coast-Ghana (4); Naples Casavatore-Italy (5), São Paulo- Brazil (6), Lima-Peru (2). Meanwhile 3 newly professed Brothers were assigned to 3 different Comboni missions and one scholastic has been assigned to a Comboni community in Lomé where he will continue his studies at a local Major Seminary.

When asked what criteria were applied to work out the assignments, Fr. John Baptist said that the exercise was carried out taking into account "the formative needs of the candidate, the needs of the missions, the preferences of the finalist novices in dialogue with their Formators and Provincial Superiors, the concrete situations of Scholasticates and IBCs (i.e. number of available places, the composition of the community according to nationality, etc..) internationality in the context of “continentality” as far as possible.

According to Fr. John Baptist, trying to create "a balanced Formator–Formandi ratio is important in order to have substantial formation communities that are convenient for group dynamics; where the Formators’ services are maximalised and finally where the weight of accompanying our young confreres is shared more or less evenly among the Formators who have been chosen for this service for the benefit of the entire Institute. Fr. John Baptist concludes by inviting all to pray for vocations in these words: "We continue to pray through the intercession of our Founder and Father St. Daniel Comboni, so that the Lord may continue to grant us more holy and capable missionaries for our times so full of challenges."